Nutrition for Athletes

Nutrition can be a complicated subject. At the Parisi Speed School Tri-Cities we like to simplify it as much as possible.

Just like training and sports, nutrition is never going to be perfect – we practice the fundamentals until it gets easier. Just like with free throws, no one is ever going to make 100% of them, but with consistent practice you might be able to get from scoring those points 80% of the time instead of 50%.

Also like with free throws, they might not win you the game, but they can certainly lose it for you. While nutrition is oversold at times – it’s not going to make you superman – poor nutrition can definitely make make you worse.

Here’s 3 ways you can help your athlete improve their nutrition so they are prepared for training:

Eat something before training. Life gets busy, and sometimes we forget to eat. But, if we don’t eat before training, our bodies aren’t prepared to get the most out of training. Training requires energy, food gives us that energy. It doesn’t need to be a big meal right before a training session, but a snack with some carbohydrate and some protein an hour or so before the session is great. I’ll list some examples below.
Drink water. It’s not technically nutrition, there’s no nutritional value to water (meaning calories, vitamins, or minerals). But, proper hydration is crucial to performance; even mild dehydration can lead to big decreases in performance – both cognitively and physically. A very rough estimate of how much water a person should have is ½ of body weight in ounces. Eg: 100lb athlete = 50 oz of water.

*Note: water is sufficient for hydrating most athletes. Sports drinks are mostly sugar water and are not required in most circumstances.
Eat 3 meals a day. As young athletes are growing it is important to make sure they have the building blocks needed for that growth. This is really tough to do if an athlete only eats 1 or 2 meals per day. Even if they snack a lot, the structure of meals is much better than that of snacks.

Meal / Snack Ideas

Morning Training: Yogurt and granola – Fruit Smoothie w/ Whey Protein – PB Toast w/ a Protein Shake
Afternoon Training Lunch – Turkey Sandwhich w/ fruit and veggies – Burrito Bowl: meat, rice, beans and choice of toppings.
Afternoon Training Snack – PB&J Tortilla Roll Up – Protein Shake – Yogurt and Piece of Fruit – Granola bar

This list is a great starter list for young athletes. If an athlete is eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, at least one snack, and is drinking a cup of water with each meal and snack, and has a water bottle during practice or training, they are going to be in great shape. Can we add some things to this to level up a bit? Definitely. But I would rather see an athlete hit this at least 80% of the time as opposed to the most perfect plan 40-50% of the time.

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